REPOST. How young, a teenaged fiction writer has gotten her - TopicsExpress

REPOST. How young, a teenaged fiction writer has gotten her generation to read books again Once there was a girl, who at the age of 13 began writing stories on anything she could get her hands on. Be it in spiral notebooks or on school pad papers, she was always eager to share the scribbles of her vivid imaginings with friends and classmates, who in turn, would pass them on to other teenaged readers. One day, technology churned out the Internet, and allowed Little Miss Writer to post her stories and fan fictions (i.e. stories made by fans of a certain movie or byproducts of pop culture) online via community forums and sites, granting her a larger readership. Soon enough, her stories became a hit with no less than 12 million reads on the online fiction blogsite Wattpad, and today she is a duly published fiction writer, with one of her paperbacks all set for a movie adaptation. Known only by her username HaveYouSeenThisGirL when her stories went viral on the World Wide Web, The Sunday Times Magazine happily met the 19-year-old bestselling author of Diary ng Panget, whose life story is also one for the books. A writer’s passion Just call her “Denny.” And when the bright-eyed young lady sat down for this interview, she had just finished a very successful book signing session at National Bookstore in TriNoma, Quezon City. She flew into Manila to meet her fans on this special day and took a short break from her studies in Italy where she attends Scuola Superiore I.P.C. Strocchi, a technical institute high school. Denny candidly told The Sunday Times Magazine that she never expected to be published since she only wrote stories as a hobby. “I didn’t have lots of readers at first. I started with one to three readers, and I was already happy with that,” the humble young lady laughed. “I don’t know when people started noticing my stories but I’m overwhelmed by their support. From less than 10 readers, I suddenly had more than 100,000 readers!” Her large fan base, she emphasized, did not grow overnight. In fact, she even encountered “difficult fans” on the Internet, ergo a lot of heartache. “I’d receive lots of demands from my readers telling me to update my stories as soon as possible. It’s flattering and annoying at the same time—flattering because I know they’re demanding for an update because they really liked the story and they’re just excited; but it’s also annoying when they ask me to update my story a minute after I posted the story. “I love writing but it’s not my life. I have school and other things to attend to and it is really annoying when they demand an update like I’m their slave. There was even a time I hated writing, I was always pressured by those demands and for me— it felt like it wasn’t the same thing anymore. “I wanted to quit because I missed the times I could write without stress or anything. I missed those times when I wrote to kill my boredom, and not to write because someone is demanding me to write.” Despite these bumps along the way, Denny decided to ignore her critics and embrace her passion all over again. She resumed her writing for herself. “Ginusto ko man mag-quit, hindi ko talaga kinayang iwan ang pagsusulat, I love writing just like how I love eating. That is why I took a short pause from writing to breathe because those demands were actually suffocating me. After that short pause, I decided to ignore all the demands and to start writing again for myself. My readers are actually my inspiration. Every time they tell me they liked my story and I made them smile through my stories, I feel so happy and inspired to write again.” Bestseller Back in Italy, Denny may come across as any regular student taking up Graphic Advertising in her fourth year. But little do her classmates know that back home, she has a 130-page novel that is loaded with Pinoy humor, which topped National Bookstores’ bestselling Filipiniana titles within a week’s release. At one point, every branch of the country’s biggest bookstore chain had ran out of stocks of what is now a serialized novel, with fans lining up to reserve and reorder copies. The same demand can also be said from her Filipino fans overseas. Written in a colloquial combination of Filipino and English, the first Diary ng Panget came out in May, with the second book quickly following in June, and a third installment just out this week. A fourth book is due for release at the 34th Manila International Bookfair, which will run from September 11 to 15. Diary ng Panget’s heroine is Reah “Eya” Rodriguez, a regular, poor and “ugly” but intelligent girl who becomes a scholar at Willford Academy, a school for the rich and famous. To make ends meet, she finds work as the personal maid of Cross Sandford, the most popular—and arrogant—guy in school. In the most comical and unexpected twist of events, the unlikely pair become friends and eventually fall in love, as Eya writes in her diary. According to Rico dela Cruz, sales circulation supervisor of PsiCom Publishing Inc., the Diary ng Panget books 1, 2 and 3 have sold 140,000 copies nationwide as of August 2013. The company’s president Arnel Gabriel, proudly added, that the title is officially PsiCom’s top-selling book to date, surpassing the sales of another PsiCom title, Ramon Bautista’s Bakit Di Ka Crush ng Crush Mo, which was just adapted into film by Star Cinema. Very soon, the publishing firm also announced that paperback copies of Denny’s two-part series on Wattpad, Voiceless, will be printed, as well as the title She Died, which, which will be out as a manga adaptation. With her huge fan base, Wattpad has officially named Denny “Wattpad Ambassador to the Philippines” as well. Rom-com gals While Denny has given the contemporary and experimental romance-comedy genre of fiction in the country a huge boost, she is happy to note that there are other young writers who are also churning successful novels in the field. Bianca Bernardino, writer of the best-selling She’s Dating the Gangster, has also contributed to the sudden and heightened demand for local teen lit novelties. Interviewed by The Sunday Times Magazine on a separate occasion, the author confessed she was not even a voracious reader before she started to write. “Honestly, I never liked to read! I just started reading because of the Twilight Saga [by American novelist Stephanie Meyer]” said Bianca, a.k.a. SGWannabe on the Internet. “But suddenly, everything just fell into place, and I started throwing ‘what’ ifs’ about a story with a friend, and ended up writing She’s Dating the Gangster.” The book follows the story of Athena Dizon who transfers to a new high school and finds herself pretending to be the girlfriend campus bad boy and “gangster” Kenji delos Reyes. Kenji forces her into the situation to make his ex-girlfriend, whose name is also Athena, jealous. As they go about the plan, the two develop strong feelings for each other, but with a love story that has a bittersweet ending. Bianca’s Taglish title was first posted in Summit Publishing’s teen Candy magazine’s online creative section in 2006. From there, a reader copied and posted the story on Wattpad, which immediately garnered hundreds of reads and votes from the online community. Eventually, the story was edited and translated in pure English, and published by Summit Books in March. Besides Denny and Bianca, other teen lit books that are getting the youth to hold on to something other than their cell phones and tablets include: Alesana Marie’s Talk Back and You’re Dead and Aril Daine’s Sadistic Lover, both released under PsiCom Publishing; and Alyloony’s full novel, Operation: Break the Cassanova’s Heart, which will be published sometime this month under Summit Books. Movies and beyond Diary ng Panget fans who trooped to Denny’s book signing were thrilled to find out that Viva Films has already bought the rights to the title and will release a Valentine’s movie adaptation in February 2014. The announcement was made by no less than the film company’s head honcho, Vic del Rosario, who told The Sunday Times Magazine that they are already in the process of writing the screenplay, as well deciding on the cast and director. Asked what makes such books click in this day and age of technology, PsiCom president Arnel Gabriel believes it all starts with a good title. “Diary ng Panget is a very catchy title so it immediately earned such a huge number of hits,” he elaborated. More importantly, he said the story is very contemporary and entertaining, thus enabling its young readers to relate and to laugh along with the plot. “Usually, teens today would just busy themselves on their computer and with their gadgets, but now we are proud that they are going back to reading books because of the works of equally young writers,” Gabriel added. As for PsiCom Publishing’s newest star—the teen generation’s new rom-com heroine—Denny has yet to wrap her head around her unexpected success in the world of publishing. “I now really want writing to be my profession,” she mused. “My goal before was to publish a book but with PsiCom doing that, I haven’t set a new goal yet.” Pausing briefly, she said again, “Maybe to write I story someday that I could call a masterpiece.” -- Asked if she considers herself “panget” (ugly) because her crossover media franchise is called “Diary ng Panget” (better known to fans as “DNP”), the young author named Denny says modestly, “Hindi po masyado, konti lang (Not really, just a bit).” The self-deprecation may be misplaced: Actually, the tiny and giggly 19-year-old has a lot to be proud of. A story she wrote online became an Internet phenomenon, then a blockbuster book series and will soon be a feature film—a whirlwind process that earned for her gazillions of fans and a financial windfall. Yet despite all her success, the young author decided to remain anonymous, though she doesn’t mind being photographed. She declines to give her real name, opting to simply use “Denny,” the name many of her fans know her by. It’s a random choice, derived from a European clothing line, one of many random choices that have turned out to be pleasant surprises for her. Denny was born in San Pablo City, Laguna, the youngest of three siblings. Her father manages a resort in the Philippines while her mother works in a medical facility for the elderly in the city of Imola in Italy. After finishing high school in San Pablo Colleges in 2010, and on her mother’s petition, she moved to Italy to study. Back in San Pablo City in 2010, the then 16-year-old found herself bored, and typed something on the online forum for Candy Magazine. That “something” turned out to be the prologue of a much-longer piece. Later, and after eschewing online games, she returned to the forum and found that her piece had received a lot of comments. That piece began: “Mahirap maging maganda; bawat galaw mo tinitingnan nila. Magkamali, hindi makakatakas sa kanilang mga mata. Ang mahirap pa, pag gusto mong mangulangot kahit patago… Hindi mo magawa (It’s hard being pretty. People pay too much attention to your every move. They see your every mistake. Why, you can’t even pick your nose, no matter how subtly you try doing it).” In 2011 and already in Italy, Denny discovered the online community of Wattpad (see sidebar) and, using the original piece as a prologue, took less than a year to pen the story of Reah “Eya” Rodriguez, a girl who feels sorry for herself as she struggles with her work, her studies and a budding romance. It was quite a long story, she says, mainly because she typed whatever came to her during her sit-down writing sessions. Written in conversational Filipino, the story had the narrative structure of a girl’s diary. It was easier to write on Wattpad, Denny claims, and the added reward was finding a large number of active readers commenting on her work. This is how Denny describes the story: “Sobrang simple lang po, sobrang cliché, isang girl na mahirap na di kagandahan makaka-meet ng guy na suplado at mayaman. Yun lang po (It’s very simple, a cliché actually. Poor girl—who isn’t that pretty—meets rich and snobbish guy. That’s all).” The book’s message? Never lose confidence in yourself. The writing style is simple and straightforward as well, exactly like how Denny sounds—except she throws in a lot of respectful “po” and “opo” when she talks. As for her pen name on Wattpad, she chose, randomly again, HaveYouSeenThisGirL. The title, “Diary ng Panget” was her choice as well. “DNP” isn’t really based on her life, she says. “I did not work in a restaurant. It’s just the stuff that pops into my head. It’s inspired by a lot of anime because people in anime often have part-time jobs,” she says. “Those names are random, too.” Among her influences were “Gakuen Alice,” the anime series she used to watch in her elementary days, and “Hano Yori Dango,” the TV series based on the manga “Boys Over Flowers.” “DNP” quickly became a Wattpad sensation, logging more than 12 million views. That’s an astounding number, especially when one considers that conversational Filipino isn’t quite the lingua franca of the young. They’re just clicks,” she shrugs. The instant Wattpad fame goaded her on and she continued writing on the site, developing a loyal following. Though she admits to having dreams of writing a book before she turned 30, she didn’t think the dream would unfurl at this time, with this work. “I really didn’t have any intention or expectation of turning (my online writing) into a book,” she says. The millions of views didn’t go unnoticed to PSICOM publisher Arnel Gabriel who recalls browsing through Wattpad and getting snagged by the catchy title “Diary ng Panget.” “I started with the first chapter and ended up reading season one to the end. I thought that even if only one percent of her 12 million reads would buy the book version, it would still be very feasible.” But it was also risky; PSICOM had not published any Wattpad properties. In late 2012, Gabriel wrote the writer to ask if she would be interested in seeing her work as a physical book. Due to a mix-up with e-mail addresses (naturally, she has several) and an inbred caution, it took Denny two months to reply. “I couldn’t believe it was real,” she says, adding that she felt elated when she found out the offer was real. “Tumitili nga ako sa bahay (I was screaming at home),” she says. Because “DNP” was so long, PSICOM asked the writer to cut it up into parts, so the story became four separate volumes. The books end as cliffhangers, so readers would have to read the next book to find out what happens next. “It was Denny’s idea not to edit the book too much and I agreed with her. We tried to maintain what was originally on Wattpad,” Gabriel explains. It proved to be a good decision. When the first of the four-book series debuted in May, it immediately took off to become No. 1 on National Bookstore’s Best-seller List for Philippine Publications. When “DNP 2” came out, it too debuted at No. 1 on the list. All this time, Denny was in Italy. “It’s a little weird,” she admits. She never expected people to buy her book, but readers’ feedback helped her understand why. “They say reading the books relieves their stress and gets rid of bad vibes,” she says. Gabriel admits “DNP” was a risk that panned out: “No one expected it to be a hit. We were all surprised! The readers have already read the story on Wattpad but they still bought the book.” The first three “DNP” books have sold 140,000 copies combined after going through numerous printings. In Imola, Italy, Denny is just another student. The fourth year graphic advertising major is fluent in Italian but speaks limited French. She still misses her friends in the Philippines, she says, and prefers living in the old country as well. Her recent trip, funded by PSICOM and timed so she could make several appearances at the Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) last month, was actually her first trip back to the Philippines since she first left for Imola in 2010. She returned to Italy two days after the MIBF ended. The Book Fair was a big deal, she says, because she saw the release not only of the fourth and final volume of “DNP,” but also of the two books that comprise her second Wattpad series, “Voiceless,” about a fangirl who winds up working for her pop idol. Then there is “She Died,” a guardian-angel love story volume that began life as another Wattpad story until Denny asked PSICOM to turn it into a manga volume instead. The books easily sold out, making Denny the best-selling author of seven books before she turned 20. She has started new projects on Wattpad, but admits feeling some pressure now that “DNP” has become a success. “I feel conscious about the words and the language I’m using,” she says. Fortunately, her Wattpad fans have proven to be a source of support. And surprise. She was mobbed at every signing event. The turnout at her Trinoma signing (estimated at around 800 people) surprised her so much she almost went home. “I couldn’t believe they were there for me,” Denny says. At the recent Book Fair, her signing had to be moved to a nearby function room to accommodate the overflow crowd. Through it all, she jealously guards her real identity. “I used HayeYouSeenThisGirL online to write ‘DNP,’ so if I chose to do a ‘DNP’ book and it was under a different name, readers wouldn’t recognize me. I want to have privacy,” she says. “I don’t want people looking into my life.” Along with fame came fortune. She has earned at least “a hundred thousand pesos”—so far, which is impressive considering the books came out only in May, a mere four months ago. That doesn’t include the sales of her four new books during the Book Fair. She’s writing all the way to the bank, literally. That’s not all. Viva Films first called up PSICOM in June, and faster than you can say movie tie-in, Denny had met with the Viva top brass and signed a deal that would translate the entire “DNP” saga into a movie planned for Valentine’s Day 2014. The movie is in pre-production and so far, she’s met with the writers. Says Gabriel: “This is our second movie tie-in. (after Ramon Bautista’s “Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo?”) I’m proud of Denny. I’m hoping the movie will be a blockbuster.” Denny has bigger plans ahead. She wants to write a book like “Socrates in Love,” the long, dramatic novel from Japanese author Kyoichi Katayama. Her style, says Gabriel, “really appeals to the young though older people might find it corny. We tried not to edit her work too much and it worked.” Why fiddle with success, he adds. “As I keep telling her, don’t ever, ever change your writing style. Keep your style, your work sells well.” Well, nothing “panget” about that. The future remains to be written for Denny. She’s not really sure what she’s going to do after graduation, nor if she would stay in Italy or come home. She’d like to do something related to her course, and to keep writing. “If I treat writing like work, it’ll change for me,” Denny says. And who would want to change the story of an ordinary girl who found fame and fortune without meaning to? You can’t make this stuff up. “Sometimes I can’t believe it because this was just something I did to relax and now look where it’s all headed. Happy na ako,” she says. •